


attention to detail

by pvc



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, death and undeath and all that mess, side alex/kyle that doesnt last long for..... obvious reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9119626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvc/pseuds/pvc
Summary: Kyle gets his words when he's three years old.





	

**Author's Note:**

> lets just pretend i meant to post this closer to new years than christmas & that i didnt just forget that i meant for this to be my gift and write it at the speed of light before the year was over to push it off as a new years gift instead alsfhgkjfg  
> anywayyyy  
> idk what canon ages even are anymore since everyone seems to enter some sort of stasis between the ages of 17-21 so i'll just say everyone in this fic is over 20 and leave the specifics up to you  
> also not beta read so im sry for any typos  
> here's this mess

Kyle gets his words when he's three years old. He's deep in concentration when it happens, so focused on coloring in the spots on the dog he'd drawn that he doesn't even notice until his mother gasps and nearly drops the cup she's holding.

“Oh, baby, look!” she says, taking his wrist in her hand and drawing his attention to the newly marked skin.

Kyle panics, not quite understanding why there are strange black marks on him or how he didn't notice when they got there. “No!” he cries. “Get it off!”

“No, no, no,” his mother coos as she scoops him into her arms and begins patting his back to soothe him. “It's okay, sweetie, they're your words! You got your words!”

“Words?” he asks.

“The love of your life,” she says as she gently pries his arm away from where he's cradling it against his chest. “Your soulmate. These words are the first thing they'll say to you.”

Kyle lifts his head from where he'd been hiding it in the nape of her neck, stares at the symbols on his skin, then frowns, turning to look at her seriously. “I can't read.”

She laughs and kisses his cheek. “That's alright. It says...”

 

 

 

“ _Finally! We've been doing your job all night!_ ” Alex reads in her most theatrical voice, her chin wresting on Kyle's shoulder as they're lounging on the couch of her tiny apartment. She snorts. “You're such a lazy bum that your soulmate knows it the moment you meet them.”

“Mean!” Kyle cries as he jerks his wrist out of her grasp and slaps his hand over his heart in feigned offense. “You're so mean to me!”

“I'm mean _period,_ ” she corrects with a smirk.

“Just the worst,” he agrees.

There's a moment there, when he turns to face her and they're only inches apart, that he thinks they might kiss, but Alex just purses her lips, her eyes flickering down to her wrist where her grayed out mark resides. He still has a soulmate, she's told him, and she doesn't want to be involved with another person she might lose.

“You can stay tonight, if you want,” she says as she stands. “My couch is always open.”

“Thanks,” he sighs. Being poor sucks. “You're the best.”

“Watch it,” she says with a playful shove to the back of his head as she walks past. “I have a mean girl reputation to keep up.”

Kyle sticks his tongue out at her as she disappears into her room before making himself comfortable. They'd talked for a long time, not really paying attention to the television. It's turned some sort of infomercial so boring that Kyle is out after just a few seconds of detailed explanations of gemstones.

 

 

 

He wakes up sweating and shivering, and barely makes it to the bathroom before he pukes. He knocks over just about everything on Alex's sink as he's lunging for the toilet, and the noise has her running out of her room.

“Kyle!” she shouts when she notices his hunched over form, crouching down and placing a hand on his back. “What happened?!”

“Ugh, _gross_ ,” he says and spits. “I don't know. Some kind of bug, maybe?” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before he realizes and turns to her with wide eyes. “Oh, man, I hope I'm not contagious.”

Alex starts to reply, but freezes. “Kyle,” she says with the same sort of forced calm someone might use when trying to talk down a wild animal.

“What?” he asks, tensing. “What's wrong?”

“Oh,” she says, her voice breaking. “Kyle. Look at your wrist.”

It takes a moment to register. “No,” he says. “No, no, no,” and does not look at his wrist.

Alex covers her mouth with her hand. “I'm so sorry.” Kyle doesn't think he's ever seen tears in her eyes before. He also thinks he may be in shock.

“Don't hug me,” Kyle hears himself say when she starts to lean in. “I just puked. I'm gross. I—I—” He swallows hard. “They can't be dead,” he says, placing a hand on his forehead, and still not looking at the mark. “I never met them.”

Alex pulls him into a hug. “I'm so sorry,” she says again, and it's not until Kyle holds his hand up behind her and looks at the faded words that he starts to cry.

 

 

 

“Look at that,” he says as they're lounging on the beach the next night trying to unwind and take his mind off of things.

“Falling star?” Alex asks as Kyle tracks the green-tinted meteor's trip through the atmosphere with his finger. “Make a wish,” she says.

 

* * *

 

It gets complicated after that.

 

* * *

 

There are a few bars out in the galaxy with drinks that won't kill you, and Guy knows them all.

“Gonna open my own one day,” he tells Kyle just like he does every time they have an outing together. “Gonna be the best bar _ever_. People will come from _miiiiiles_ away to my place!” he says, complete with a drunken twirl.

“That'll be a sight,” Kyle says. “A bar owner who can't hold his liquor.”

“Bah!” Guy holds up a hand and turns sharply away, affronted. “I don't need this!” He stumbles away from his and Kyle's spot at the bar and over to the alien women with the hair that looks half-sentient who have been eyeing them all night. Kyle shakes his head and internally wishes him the best before downing the rest of his drink.

“I do hope you realize, Lantern,” a voice says from behind him, “that is a Councilor's _daughter_ your comrade is harassing.”

Kyle turns to find another woman of the same species glaring at him like he's something that stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He sighs, looking pointedly to where Guy seems to be getting along just fine with his new tablemates—all three of them more than likely drunk and giggling at absolutely nothing but very visibly enjoying themselves.

“Doesn't look much like harassment to me,” Kyle says. “I'll tell him to leave her alone if you really want me to, though.”

She presses her lips into a tight line as the Councilor's daughter throws her head back in laughter. “If he tries to leave with her, I will be forced to kill him.”

“Naturally,” he says, and turns back to the bar. A moment passes in silence before Kyle peers over his shoulder to find her still uncomfortably lingering in the middle of the room like she doesn't know how to conduct herself in such an establishment. He sighs, running a hand down his face before taking pity on her and motioning to the empty chair next to him. “Have a seat?”

She eyes him suspiciously.

“An innocent offer,” Kyle promises, holding his hands up in a faux surrender. “I swear.”

“Hm,” she says, looking wholly unconvinced, but takes the seat anyway.

“Kyle,” he introduces himself. He starts to offer a hand shake in his drunken state, but remembers that most alien races don't greet each other in the same way that humans do halfway through, awkwardly placing his hand back down onto the table between them in a failed attempt to play it off.

“My rank is Captain,” she says, looking at him strangely for the gesture. “You may address me as such.”

“Captain,” he nods. “Nice to meet you.”

Captain gives him a cold look for that. “I have no interest in being seduced,” she tells him.

Kyle smiles at that, holding back a laugh as best he can for fear of offending. “I have no interest in seducing,” he promises.

“Hm,” she says. “No, I suppose you wouldn't. Seeing as humans have predetermined bondmates.”

“Yeah,” Kyle says. “Well.”

“It is very strange,” she informs him, tilts her head. “I am curious, and you are the first human I have ever encountered. Would it be rude of me to ask to see these marks we hear so much about?”

Kyle shrugs. He's gotten pretty used to this kind of thing. Soulmarks seem to be a human anomaly, and one out of every two aliens he meets has a few questions. He pulls up his sleeve and presents his wrist to her.

“They're meant to be black, but mine are dulled because—” He stops.

Everything stops. The constant murmur of conversation in the background even seems to quiet against the ringing that's starting in his ears.

“Um,” he says, bringing his wrist closer for closer inspection.

He's drunk. That has to be it. Or drugged. Someone put a hallucinogen in his drink. He's losing his mind.

“Lantern?” Captain asks, looking a bit concerned when Kyle zones back in.

“It's... supposed to be...” He swallows hard, head now spinning from shock _and_ alcohol. “I—excuse me. I'm sorry, but I think I have to go,” he says, clambering out of his seat.

 

 

 

“How is this even _possible?_ ” Kyle asks for what has to be the tenth time since they left the bar. He's not sure where they're headed, just sort of following Guy wherever he goes. Though, he's starting to think that Guy is following him, as well, and they're just flying around in circles, but, hey, he could really use some time to think anyway.

“I don't know,” Guy answers again.

“It's been gray for _two years_ ,” he says. “I don't understand.”

“There's gotta be, like, experts on this stuff, right?” Guy says. “On Earth?”

“I mean,” Kyle shrugs, “I guess?”

“I've been meaning to take some time off, anyway,” he says. “What's say we have ourselves some leave and find you somebody who knows about this shit?”

 

 

 

They find a professional in New York. Her office is full up with all kinds of strange looking artifacts that Kyle is too afraid to touch because they look kind of haunted. She's a bit eccentric and obviously very passionate about her job, going off on long tangents about the how and why of soulmarks. Guy keeps making faces when she's not looking.

“It is not a flawless system,” she tells them as she hunts down a particular page in the book on her desk, then doesn't read from it. “For what is death, really?”

“What does that mean?” Kyle asks.

“When is someone truly dead?” she rephrases. “When the soul leaves the body? When the heart ceases to beat?”

Kyle stares at her, waiting for clarification, and receives none. “What does _that_ mean?” he repeats.

She motions to the large window at her right. “Across the street is a hospital with an entire ward dedicated to those who could be argued as dead— _brain_ dead—yet they still live.”

Guy groans. “You couldn't have just _said_ they were in a coma?”

“I don't know that for certain,” she says. “It's just one example. My point is that marks dis- and reappearing, while remarkably uncommon, is not unnatural.”

“I've never heard of it happening,” Kyle says.

“ _Remarkably_ uncommon,” she stresses.

“What should I do?” he asks. “What if it happens again?”

“Go about your life as before?” she suggests. “It's no less likely to dull again than any other person's. You're just like every other man trying to find his soulmate once again. No one can tell you how you'll meet your marked. Anyone who says different is conning you. Though...” She tilts her head, considering. “Ever try speed dating?”

And now it's just hookup advice from someone with a PhD.

“I should go,” Kyle says. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course,” she nods, leaning over to press a business card into his hand. “Please think about contacting me when you find them. I would be very interested in studying your case.”

Kyle nods mutely, shoving the card in his pocket and shivering a little. _When_ he finds them.

“Please try speed dating,” Guy laughs as they're leaving. “Please. I'd pay to see it.”

Kyle resolutely does not push him into oncoming traffic.

 

 

 

“Maybe it's another lantern,” Guy says later, propping his feet up on the empty chair across from them at the little coffee shop they've ducked into to get away from the sudden downpour.

“You think?” Kyle asks as he looks down at his marks for what must be the hundredth time today—like if he takes his eyes off of his wrist, they'll be dulled when he looks back.

“Well, unless you're moonlighting without telling me, being a lantern is your job,” he motions to Kyle's wrist. “I find it hard to imagine a civilian starting out a conversation with one of us like that. Half the people out there don't know who we are, and the other half are scared shitless of us.”

Kyle chews on that for a moment. He's never really thought too deep about the meaning behind the words since becoming a lantern—never had a reason to—but...

“It makes sense,” he admits. “Death and death-like states seem to happen and unhappen to us a lot, huh?”

Guy raises his coffee cup in a mock toast to that, then downs it in one swig.

“Alright,” Kyle says, starting to stand, “we should get back as soon as possible. They might be—”

“No,” Guy says. “No, no,” and points at Kyle's seat. “We still have _two days_ before we have to be back,” he continues with an accusing finger. “I intend to enjoy them.”

“But—”

“ _No_ ,” Guy says again, then rolls his eyes. “ _Don't_ give me that look. You're fated to meet them wherever you go! A couple days won't kill you.”

Kyle winces at the choice of words, frowning. “I _have_ been meaning to stop by Radu's,” he admits after a moment.

Guy grins. “That's the spirit!” he says, leaning over to clap Kyle on the shoulder as he retakes his seat. “A bit of downtime, and I bet you we'll bump into 'em the moment we get back.”

 

* * *

 

They don't.

 

* * *

 

Kyle sighs a puff of vapor into the cold atmosphere of the planet they've stopped on. “Quick stop,” Carol had promised as she traipsed off into the icy jungle. “Just sit tight, take in the scenery. I won't be long.”

It's beautiful except for the biting cold—pristine and almost blindingly white, which he guesses is apt—and he's just trying to enjoy this moment of respite in what has become a _very_ hectic year. He runs his thumb along the outer edge of his gleaming, white ring with a sigh. What a life.

“Well,” Carol's voice breaks his reverie as she touches down in front of him, arms crossed and a troubled expression on her face, “I think I found our next stop.”

“Oh, boy,” Kyle stands, “another crisis?”

“Isn't there always?” she asks with a cynical smirk, then shakes her head. “Got some rumors tossed my way of some shady goings on,” she continues. “Came to the village to check it out, and, well...” She sighs.

“What?”

“Apparently, dear sweet Lantern Jordan upset the dictator of this planet enough that he's decided to retaliate,” she pinches the bridge of her nose, “by sending a fleet to his home planet.”

“Oh,” Kyle says. “Oh no.”

“Yep,” Carol sighs. “Looks like we're headed home for the holidays.”

 

 

 

It's chaos when they arrive. There are a few Greens already on the scene, doing their best to contain the ships, but they are gravely outnumbered and having trouble simply deflecting the massive energy weapons constantly firing at the planet's surface.

“Ground troops!” one of them shouts when they arrive. “They sent ground troops, but we can't—”

“On it!” Kyle says, and makes a bee line for the surface below. There's only one ship depositing soldiers onto the ground; maybe they can stop the assault before it spreads.

“I'll stay here!” Carol shouts, pink stone encasing the dropship and preventing any more troops from descending. “Make sure nobody else joins you, and keep these rookies in line 'til the cavalry comes.”

“Good luck!” Kyle throws back before plunging through the atmosphere. Shouldn't be too hard. Can't be more than a couple thousand soldiers, and it's just one city—

“Oh, _no_ ,” he groans, stopping to hover over the Gothic architecture and trash stretched across the landscape. Gotham. It had to be _Gotham_.

Well. If ever there were a city prepared for an alien invasion...

They're half likely to get taken out by a villain or vigilante before Kyle can even get to them. He snorts at the thought as he circles around the city a couple times, looking for the larger packs of troops in the city. Hasty work, this invasion. They're scattered all around, no rhyme or reason to any of their movements.

“Alright, fellas,” Kyle says, lowering down to one of the groups who have backed a gang of half scared, half irritated looking citizens into a back alley, guns ablaze, “I think you're done here.” He manifests a giant broom and dustpan, sweeping the troops up and cementing their arms and legs into the construct to keep them from escaping. They screech at the action, horribly offended, he's sure.

“What have we learned about hostile invasion today?” he asks as he brings his giant cleaning supply sideshow to the streets, scooping up aliens as he goes. Mom would be proud.

“Watch out!” someone shouts from behind him, and Kyle whirls to find one of the aliens has jumped at him from an adjacent roof. It's everything he can do not to lose hold of his construct as an orange and purple blur body slams it out of the air.

“What—!” he starts, but the words die in his throat when spots the figure the warning had come from perched on the edge of one of the skyscrapers. “Roy!”

“Wh—” Roy stands a little straighter. “Kyle?”

“Oh, good!” a sing-song voice says from a parallel building, and Kyle turns to find a woman with flaming hair hovering next to a man with some sort of tin can on his head, an unconscious alien in her arms. “A lantern!”

The man next to her snorts from under his mask, and says, “ _Finally._ We've been doing your job all night.”

Kyle loses control of his construct.

“Whoa!” he hears Roy shout from behind him.

There's a split second before he says anything, drawn out to seem like hours by his shock, and he hears himself say, “What is on your _head_?”

The guy recoils like he's been slapped.

“Oh!” the orange woman gasps, dropping the alien onto the ground and covering her mouth with her hands. "Did he--?!"

“I—I—” Kyle shakes his head to try and slot his disconnected, adrenaline pumped thoughts into place. “I gotta,” he motions to the aliens currently escaping back into the city.

“Yeah,” the guy says, sounding much more put together than Kyle feels but still slightly dazed.

It hurts like a physical thing as Kyle pulls himself in the other direction, cleaning up the mess his lack of concentration had made and finishing the job.

He returns to the rooftop when it's all said and done, and stays there for an hour hoping maybe the man—his _soulmate_ —will show up. It's a dejected flight away when he doesn't.

 

 

 

Kyle has had many low points in his life, but sitting alone in a booth as one of two people in one of the many decrepit looking 24-hour diners in Gotham at 5AM, staring at Batman's number in his phone, and seriously considering calling him to help with a romantic problem may be the lowest. The number he had for Roy isn't working anymore, and Kyle can't find him anywhere in the city. He frowns at the thought, checking his mark. His soulmate is alive, at least, if avoiding him.

But Batman has to know who he is. The guy as anal as it gets about knowing everything and everyone in the city. Kyle is honestly a little surprised he hasn't busted through the window and started trying to drag him out of the city now that the action is done with.

After a couple moments more of consideration and with only minimal nausea, he dials the number.

“Lantern,” he answers after a few rings. “We have things under control. The remaining hostile aliens are being rounded up and—”

“Yeah,” Kyle interrupts with a wince. “I know—uh—that's not what I was calling for.”

There's silence on the other end.

“Um,” he continues after maybe a moment too long, “see, well, the thing is,” he swallows hard, “I—I met my soulmate tonight.”

“Congratulations,” Batman says after a beat, sounding equal parts confused and annoyed.

“Thanks,” Kyle replies, and resists the urge to beat his head into the table at how uncomfortable this conversation is. “Thing is, it was in the middle of all this mess, and I couldn't exactly stop for a meet and greet in the thick of it so,” he makes a hand motion even though it's a phone call, “I was thinking maybe you'd know who he was?”

A sigh. “You realize that I don't personally know every single person in this city.”

“No, yeah, I know! But he was a mask! And—and I'm pretty sure you keep track of everyone operating in Gotham, right?” he asks, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.

There's another short stretch of silence. “Describe him.”

Kyle shifts around in his seat in excitement. “Okay, okay,” he says, trying to recall. “He didn't really have a _costume_ costume like you do—just kind of looked like regular clothes. Oh! He was working with Roy, too—uh, Arsenal, I mean. And a girl who I think was an alien. I couldn't see his face, though. His helmet covered his entire head.”

Batman makes a sound like he's just been stabbed. “Was it red?”

“What?”

“His helmet. Was it red?”

Kyle bites the inside of his cheek as he tries to remember. “It was pretty dark out, but I think so?”

The line crackles with something that sounds suspiciously like curses in another language muttered under his breath, something like “a lantern, of _course_ ,” then, “I have to go.”

“Wait, wait, do you know him?”

He sighs. “I'll do what I can,” he says, sounding strained, and the line goes dead.

“That's not an answer,” Kyle hisses into his phone before groaning and dropping his head down onto the sticky table.

“Rough night?” someone asks. Kyle turns to find the sole other patron staring at him from over the rim of his coffee mug.

“Wasn't it for everyone?” Kyle counters, and the other man snorts.

“True,” he says, “but—and forgive me for eavesdropping—I doubt everyone met their soulmate tonight.”

Kyle stiffens at that. “I—”

The stranger stands, tilting his head with a wry look, scooping his cup off the bar and starting to make his way over to Kyle's table. “And the first person you call is _Batman_?” He shakes his head as he takes a seat across from Kyle, propping his feet on the table in a way that makes the waitress throw Kyle a withering look like it's _his_ fault. “You got weird priorities, buddy,” he continues.

Typical Gotham. You can't throw a stone without hitting some sort of supervillain in this city. “I'm not important to him. We aren't friends, if that's what you're thinking,” Kyle says. He's pretty sure he could take this guy, but he'd rather not make the waitress hate him even more for wrecking the place. However, he thinks he'd rather take out the whole city block than let Batman know he got careless.

But the guy just gives Kyle a considering look before nodding like Kyle has passed some kind of test. “Good to know,” he replies vaguely, and brings his cup back to his lips, calm as you like.

Not a supervillain, then? Maybe just a crazy person. “Who _are_ you?”

He sits up straighter at that, putting his feet on the ground where they belong so he can lean in and give Kyle the most critical once-over he's ever received. “Jason,” he answers after a moment, still scanning Kyle like he's looking for some sort of weakness. "Jason Todd."

“Nice to meet you,” Kyle deadpans insincerely. It makes 'Jason' smile for some reason. “What do you want?”

“An apology, maybe?” he says, sounding strangely amused as he starts to push up his sleeve.

“What—” Kyle starts, but it falls flat when Jason presents him his wrist.

“I went my whole life,” Jason continues, motioning at the _What is on your head?_ branded on the skin, “terrified that this was actually about my dick.”

That startles a laugh out of Kyle's surprised state. “You?” he says.

“Yep,” Jason confirms, “me,” and falls back into his seat, running a hand through his hair. “You have no _idea_ the kind of nightmare scenarios I dreamed up. I learned _everything_ I could about safe sex in fear of what might come.”

Kyle absolutely does not think too deeply into that. “I thought you'd be another lantern,” he says instead—like an apology for staying off planet for so long.

Jason laughs gleefully, seeming to get a kick out of that. “Oh, man,” he says, “oh, _man_ ,” and wiggles around in his seat before leaning into the table like an overeager child. “A lantern!” he exclaims like a realization. “What did he say when you told him my soulmate was a fucking lantern? _Please._ ”

“Who, Batman?”

Jason nods, his eyes wide with barely contained excitement. “How pissed was he? Did he go ' _hrn_ '?”

“I—It wasn't _that_ bad,” Kyle tries.

“No,” Jason interrupts. “Don't downplay. I live for his discomfort.”

He sighs. “Alright. I think he cursed me out in Farsi, but I can't be sure.” Then, he gives Jason a suspicious look. “You're not a supervillain, are you?”

Jason gives him a look. “Tell me you don't want to kick his pompous ass sometimes.”

“Fair,” Kyle concedes even though it's not quite an answer. Then, he cocks his head. “He's not the one who put you in the coma, is he?”

The light expression is wiped off of Jason's face in an instant. “What?”

Kyle pats his his wrist. “They went dull one day,” he explains with an even a tone as he can about this subject, “and then just—just came back. Someone told me that it can happen if your, uh,” he hesitates, “ _soulmate_ is comatose, it can happen.”

Jason just stares at him for a minute before he sighs, raking his hands down his face. “Shit,” he says. “I didn't even...” He trails off, taking a moment to just stare up at the ceiling, deep in thought. Then, he sighs and scoots out of the booth.

“We obviously have a lot to discuss,” he says as he stands. “Things best not said in the middle of a diner about to hit their breakfast rush.” He stops, turning to look at Kyle with an almost nervous expression. Then, after a bit of internal deliberation, holds out his hand. “Shall we?”

Kyle can't help but roll his eyes as he takes the hand and pulls himself up. “Very chivalrous,” he says.

“What can I say?” Jason replies as they begin to make their way to the door. They're halfway there before he seems to realize they're still holding hands and pulls away.

“Hold on,” he says, reaching out to tug at Kyle's sleeve to stop him as he's already one foot out the door. “Tip your waitress.”

Kyle stares at him, trying to figure out if this is some kind of teasing for his being a hero or if he's being sincere, for long enough that Jason frowns and says, “What?”

Sincerity, then. There's a fuzzy feeling.

“Nothing,” Kyle promises, trying to hold back a smile as he pulls out a wrinkly ten and puts it in the tip jar. “My mom would've liked you,” he says as he turns back, shoving his hands in his pockets, and heading out into the streets with Jason at his side, thinking that maybe, _just maybe_ , this thing will work out.

 

**Author's Note:**

> merry (late) christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate *:


End file.
